


Saving Face

by LadyoftheWoods



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Sympathetic Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Sympathetic Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Sympathetic Logic | Logan Sanders, Sympathetic Morality | Patton Sanders, deciet angst, lots of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24065752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyoftheWoods/pseuds/LadyoftheWoods
Summary: Deceit has a breakdown. The other sides help.
Comments: 47
Kudos: 585





	Saving Face

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "The Record Player Song" by hotvanilla on YouTube. They're an awesome animator that has done quite a few Sanders Sides animations and animatics, and they're amazing.

He’s in the kitchen, when it starts. He’s washing up the dishes from the night before, because it was a movie night, and everyone passed out before cleaning anything up. He doesn’t mind cleaning. Finds it a bit soothing, actually, gives his hands something to do while his mind wanders.

His face burns, suddenly, a spasm of pain, and he drops the bowl he was holding into the sink, hand flying to his mouth at his reflection. The scales are gone, his face a mirror of Remus’s, unruly hair, electric green eyes, perfectly applied messy makeup. 

It stays just for a moment, before he grips the counter, another spasm wracking his frame, this time shifting all of him, he can tell from the outfit it’s Virgil this time, and he shakes his head. 

They’re healing, they all are, but he knows Virgil will still freak if he sees him impersonating him, never mind the fact that he isn’t trying to impersonate anyone at the moment. He hisses in a breath, forcing himself to change back, change back, and he does, though it sends a shooting sharp zing up his spine. 

“Um, Dee? You ok?” His head shoots up at the voice, forcing a smile to his face, forcing his mounting fear back as he can feel another change coming. 

“Yes. Fine and dandy. Just finished the dishes.” He sweeps past Patton, letting his smile drop as soon as he’s passed Patton and turned down the hall, staggering against the wall as he is nearly knocked off his feet, the sharpness like a punch to his stomach, rattling his bones. Roman this time, it seems, and he clenches his fists, trying to breathe. 

His gloves flicker in and out of existence for a moment, before they settle into reality, his outfit changing to his own, his face burning as it settles on Patton. It’s coming faster now, and he can’t stop it, and he doesn’t know what is happening. 

His door seems like a distant mirage through the staggering pain that shatters in his skull each time his form flickers, he’s lost count of the changes, can’t keep track of the flickers he catches out of the corners of his eyes, here a green sash, there black dress pants, now a katana at his hip, now a hood pulled over his head, scales and blue eyes, green eyes and yellow gloves, red sash and black painted nails as he barely manages to shoulder his door open, stumbling across the room to his mirror. 

He’s clutching at his hair, as it changes again and again, his own face unrecognizable, and it hurts, and he just wants it to stop because he’s not even sure who he is anymore, this amalgamation of the other’s traits melding and mixing and breaking and shifting and his reflection is dizzying to look at. 

Then glass shatters, is sent flying across the room, and he belatedly realizes he has a new cut across his unscaled cheek, and for a moment, he’s himself again, eyes wide and afraid, the freckles across the bridge of his nose showing, with how pale his face is right now, and he stumbles back, broken glass crunching under his feet. 

He lets out a soft cry of pain as he drops to the floor, heedless of the glass, face buried in his hands, too long bangs that aren’t his hiding his face, and he feels himself glitching, cracking, breaking, he is sure the cracks in the mirror are etched into his skin, sure that the slightest breeze will blow him apart, send him scattering across the floor. 

It is too much, he doesn’t know why now, it is all hitting him, why now, it is all too much, when he’s had his entire existence to deal with every issue that he’s ever shoved back behind his walls, but suddenly those walls aren’t high enough and he’s drowning and he doesn’t know who he is anymore.

His gaze shoots up as he hears the door open, scrambling backwards against the wall, breathe catching in his throat, before another spasm rocks him to his core, and he flinches back so hard his head cracks against the wall, tears springing to his eyes, and he can’t find it in him to open them and see what he has become this time, he can’t stand to see the looks on their faces. 

He is just starting to fit in, just starting to be accepted, just started having fun and being involved and not being purely maligned. And now, now this, now he looks like the monster Roman had once thought him to be, and he bites his lip hard as he curls forward, sickening nausea forcing his eyes open, his reflection staring at him from glass shards, a thousand different colored eyes staring back at him, and he doesn’t know which ones are his, if any of them have ever been his, he doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to look like, he never has, he’s forgotten his own face. 

“Dee.” A light touch rests on his shoulder, the voice low and soft, trying not to startle him. “what do you need?” Logan, he’s looking up at Logan, or is Logan looking at him? He doesn’t know, he can’t tell, he just shakes his head. 

“I don’t… I don’t know.” He gasps out, trying to stifle the changes, hands fisting in his gloves, oh, gloves, the gloves are back. 

“That’s ok, love. It’s ok to not know.” Roman murmurs, crouching beside him, carefully resting a hand on his knee, gentle enough he can easily pull away if he wants to. 

“It hurts… I don’t understand… I can’t…” he stammers, voice cracking, a silent scream building in his throat, one that would shatter glass if he hadn’t already done that with his own fist, but his vocal chords are closing shut, and he can’t make any more words, which terrifies him, and soon his breath is gasping in and out, sandpaper rubbing his throat raw as he struggles to inhale.

“Breathe, Dee. In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. You can do it, Dee. In and out.” His vision is spotty, but he recognizes Virgil’s voice, counting out the numbers slowly and steadily, whispering out soft encouragements between numbers, until his vision clears, and he realizes he’s slumped back against Remus, who must have slid in between him and the wall to cushion his head. 

“DeeDee? You back?” He nods weakly, collapsing as a final wave of fiery flame races across his face, feeling everything shift back into place, his scales unfurl across his cheek, his capelet settle across his shoulders, his gloves firmly in place. 

“yes. Sorry.” He manages, face pressed against Remus’s shirt, not trusting himself to look at anyone, not wanting to see his own reflection in the shattered glass, afraid of it for the first time in years. 

“Oh, kiddo. There’s nothing to be sorry about. I was coming to check on you, cause you seemed a little off in the kitchen, when Logan heard you shout and the thump against the wall.” 

He winces. He hadn’t realized he’d shouted. Hadn’t realized he’d been that loud. 

“Don’t apologize again, or I’ll rip out your tongue and stitch it back on.” Remus whispers in his ear, making him let out a surprised snort, because that is Remus’s way of saying he’s worried, and he cares, and he’s here. 

“you’re hurt.” Patton murmurs, and he wants to wince at the touch that ghosts over his cheek, where the glass cut it, but he doesn’t, because it is touch, and it feels good to be touched so gently. 

“We should also bandage those knuckles, and get them some ice, so they don’t swell.” Logan responds, and he cracks open his eyes at the almost hesitant note in his voice, peeking out from the sanctuary of Remus’s arms just a tad, just to gauge the amount of disgust or hatred he’d be dealing with now. 

“Hey. ‘S ok, Dee. No one’s mad. No one’s upset. We’re just worried about you, alright? That’s all. Just let us help, ok?” Virgil asks, no doubt picking up on his own anxiety, the cause of which wasn’t hard to guess. Especially since Virgil had lived with them so long before moving. Virgil could read him better than anyone else, save Remus. 

“ok.” He whispers again, looking around the room, seeing Virgil’s words echoed in everyone else’s eyes, and he can feel the truth of it like cream being poured into black coffee, slowly mellowing out the bitterness to something tolerable. 

He lets Remus carry him to the living room, lets Logan and Patton fuss over his hand, lets Virgil slip onto the couch next to him, and intertwine their hands without saying a word, just a silent pillar of support. He lets his head rest against Roman’s shoulder, who starts humming softly, Remus eventually joining to form a strange, lilting duet that flits like a hummingbird through his mind.

“it’s ok, Dee. You can sleep.” He feels Patton kiss his head softly, as Logan finishes carefully wrapping his hand in bandages, but he doesn’t let go, instead gently stroking his knuckles with his thumb, just light enough to send tingles up his arm. “we’ll be right here when you wake up. Then we can figure this all out together, m’kay?” Patton asks, and he is barely aware of mumbling something that could be a yes, because he is warm, and surrounded by people, and surrounded by touch, that grounds him in a way he hasn’t known in years. 

“thank you.” He whispers, not sure if anyone can even here him, with how quiet his voice is, how small, and it hurts, honestly, to speak, but he forces those words out anyway, because he means them. 

“Of course, love.” Roman murmurs in his ear, and he feels Virgil squeeze his hand gently in agreement, Logan pressing a kiss to his bruised knuckles that sends shivers up his spine in a good way, Remus holding him just a bit closer, Patton gently tucking back his hair, and he is crying, finally, the silent tears slipping out because somehow being loved almost hurts more right now than being ignored and hated, because it gives him something to lose. And the last time he lost, he lost Virgil. 

“you’re not gonna lose us, Dee. You’re not gonna scare us away. We will fight for you, I will fight for you, I promise.” Virgil, soft but fierce, and he can’t tell if he’d spoken out loud, or if his anxiety was just so strong that Virgil could read it with ease. 

“I love you.” He says smally, slipping back into the darkness, every inch of him aching from the forced shifting, sore and feeling like every muscle has been pulled, every part of him stretched wrong. 

“love you too, snake face. Now go to sleep.” Remus replies fondly, and he finds himself unable to disobey that soft suggestion any longer, not if his family will be there when he wakes up.


End file.
